Can we bank on the Government to act?
1 Oct 2009
Urgent action is required to address the growing unemployment crisis. The Live Register now stands at 429,400 (seasonally adjusted) and the Standardised Unemployment Rate is 12.6%. The INOU is deeply concerned that the Government's response to-date to the unemployment crisis has been piecemeal and small in scale.
"The numbers on the Live Register are of a magnitude Ireland has never had to deal with before," noted Bríd O'Brien, Head of Policy and Media. An integrated response to the economic and social crisis facing the country is urgently required. The Government must start to treat the unemployment crisis as seriously as it has treated the banking one and invest in the long-term future of its own labour force.
In the organisation's most recent project, entitled 'Linking Education and Training to Employment', unemployed people called for "Greater integration of employment, education training and social welfare services." Such a development is seen as crucial if unemployed people and people facing redundancy are to have a realistic prospect of re-entering the workforce.
The Quarterly National Household Survey for Quarter 2 2009 showed long-term unemployment continuing to grow and now stands at 2.6%, a figure not seen since early 1999. As the National Economic and Social Council noted that in its March 2009 report, "Only integration and innovation in how Ireland's educational system, training and labour market policies, and welfare state respond will ensure that a new problem of long-term unemployment is not created."
Today the INOU marched with other community organisations and trade unions in protest against the current, and proposed, cuts to community projects across the country. The INOU is keenly aware that in many incidents these projects offered a life line to areas badly hit by long term unemployment in the past and in some cases they are the only link to the labour market.
For further information contact: Bríd O'Brien, Head of Policy and Media at 086 608 9641
